tscbear said:
In my humble opinion, we are a result of poor defensive talent assesment and drafting as well as being stuck with limited salary cap space for the last 2-3 years...
I agree. To me the Jamal Reynolds draft pick has hurt the team more than anything, and has prevented the Packers from getting over the hump and into the SuperBowl.
Reynolds signing bonus still counts towards our cap, which limits the Packers ability to sign free agents to help fill holes elsewhere. Then Reynold's play was so poor, that the Packers signed Joe Johnson to try to fix it. But he turned out as bad as Reynolds, and now his signing bonus counts towards our cap too, further preventing us from signing free agents. Plus we lost our backup QB in Hasselbeck that we could have traded elsewhere instead for depth, instead of giving him away for a bust like Reynolds.
I don't blame Sherman for signing Johnson though, because at the time it seemed like a good move. If Johnson would have performed for us the way Sean Jones did when Wolf signed Jones, the Johnson signing would have looked great. But looking back in hindsite, it was a mistake.
If Reynolds would have turned into a Jevon Kearse, we'd have a good pass rush right now with KGB and Reynolds, and we wouldn't have Joe Johnson's signing bonus hurting the Packers cap situation. But instead we have a limited pass rush at the moment to go along with the dead cap space of Reynolds and Johnson. To me, that Reynolds pick more than any other has had a domino effect that has hurt us over the years more than anything else.